5 managers who have spent the most in the transfer market

4. Manuel Pellegrini - €1.05b

The Chilean was a defender during his playing years and worked in Chile and Argentina during the start of his career. After a brief, but successful spell with River Plate, Manuel Pellegrini joined Villareal in Spain in July 2004. He stayed there for 5 years, investing €115.4m on 29 players before he was offered a job by Real Madrid in the summer of 2009.

At the Santiago Bernabeu, Pellegrini spent €258.5m on 8 players in his only season, which included paying the then world-record fee of €94m for Cristiano Ronaldo. Kaka, Karim Benzema, and Xabi Alonso were also purchased in the same season. Unfortunately, despite picking up a then club-record 96 points in the La Liga, Real Madrid still finished second behind Barcelona and Pellegrini was replaced by Jose Mourinho in the summer of 2010.

The Chilean spent 3 seasons at Malaga next, investing €67.15m on 12 players. Before the start of the 2013/14 season, Pellegrini joined Manchester City. In his 3 seasons with City, he won the Premier League title - in his first season - and 2 League cups. He spent €427.1m on 19 players at the Etihad, buying future stars such as Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Fernandinho.

After 2 years in China next, Pellegrini joined West Ham United in May 2018 and is currently managing the Hammers. He has spent €1.05 Bn on 87 players to date in his managerial career and has won 5 trophies.

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Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written close to 9000 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.

Deepungsu holds a PG degree in Microbiology and an MBA degree in Total Quality Management. He has an extensive two-decade long writing experience, which includes a decade of sports blogging. His writing prowess has even led his work getting cited on the legendary Franz Beckenbauer's Wikipedia page.

Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.

Deepungsu has been a Manchester United supporter since the year 2000. Unsurprisingly, his favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson and the Scotsman helped him get through some of the toughest days of his life. Like the fiery Scot, Deepungsu also leaves no stone unturned when it comes to accuracy in articles and only relies on credible sources.

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Edited by Sai Teja